President Bush is vetoed Tuesday the HR 6331 bill which blocks cuts in Medicare payments. Subsequently, both houses of Congress swiftly overrode the veto with large bipartisan majorities, turning the bill into law. In the House, 383 to 41 voted for overriding Bush's veto, with 153 Republicans defying the president. In the Senate, it was 70 to 26, with 21 Republican Senators rejecting the position of George W. Bush.

The law rejects a 10.6 percent cut in payments to doctors who care for millions of older Americans. At the same time, AARP volunteers reached a critical milestone this weekend in the Association's "Keep Medicare Fair" campaign, announcing the sending of the 1,000,000th message to Congress and the White House.

The House passed a bill to prevent the Medicare pay cut by a vote of 355 to 59 just before the Fourth of July recess, and passed the Senate in a dramatic vote Wednesday. The unexpected Senate support was at least partly triggered by the surprise appearance of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who is recovering from surgery for brain cancer.

While both Republicans and Democrats were unsure of the outcome going into the vote, it turned out a 69-30 as 18 Republicans supported the bill, even though last month the same Senate rejected it. Now the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act was finally made law with the override of Bush’s veto.

The American Medical Association also got involved in this dispute backing the bill and blaming Senate Republicans who tried to block it in a series of radio and TV commercials, accusing them of favoring insurance companies over doctors and elderly patients. The AMA ads say these senators are aiding “powerful insurance companies at the expense of Medicare patients’ access to doctors.” The commercials pointed at 10 Republican senators, including seven up for election this fall.